THERMAL PHYSICS

SPECIFIC LATENT HEAT

Title and Content Layout with List
– Changing States
– Latent heat
– Video
– Graphs
– Questionnaire
– Definitions 7 experimentation
– Worked Example
– Boiling & evaporation
– Evaporation effects
CHANGING STATES
LATENT HEAT
• Specific latent heat is the amount of heat required to change the
state of a unit mass of a substance without changing its
temperature.

• WHAT THEN DOES LATENT MEAN????

LATENT HEAT EXPERIMENT
TIME/MINS TEMPERATURE/oC
0 0
1 0
2 0
3 0
5 0
10 50
15 100
16 100
17 100
 RESULTS
T E M P E R A T U R E V S T I M E F OR HEA T I NG OF I C E
• What happens at A?
120

C
• What happens at B?
100
• What happens at C?
80
TEMPERATURE

60 B

40

20

A
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
TIME/MINS
Example 2: Cooling Curve for
Naphthalene
• If heat energy is
consistently being
supplied but the
temperature remains
constant at a change in
state, what then is the
“latent” heat used for?
Questionnaire
Heat energy is simply the...
When you heat a substance what usually happens is...
However when the substance is changing state the temperature...
This is because the heat energy is being used to...
This can be seen on a graph when...
The steepest parts of a graph are when all the heat energy is being used to...
Specific Latent heat of vaporization (𝑙𝑣 )
• The specific latent heat of vaporization of a substance is the
quantity of heat needed to change unit mass of a substance from
liquid to vapour state without a change in temperature
𝐸 = 𝑚𝑙𝑣
The unit for 𝑙𝑣 is J𝑘𝑔−1

– See experiment on page 162 to determine the specific latent heat of vaporization of
water.
Specific latent heat of fusion 𝑙𝑓
• The specific latent heat of fusion of a substance is the quantity of
heat needed to change unit mass of a substance from solid to liquid
state without a change in temperature.
𝐸 = 𝑚𝑙𝑓
The unit for 𝑙𝑓 is J𝑘𝑔−1

– See experiment on page 162 to determine the specific latent heat of fusion of ice.
– Also see lab sheet for determining latent heat of fusion of ice using method of mixtures.
 WORKED EXAMPLE
• A physics student converts 10 kg of water at 33oC to steam at 100oC. Assuming no heat losses, calculate the
total energy required in mega joules to heat the water to 100oC
• Specific heat capacity of water = 4200 Jkg-1K-1 Specific latent heat of vaporization of water= 2 300 000 Jkg-1

• STEP 1- Identify the stages where specific heat and latent heat act.

• In this case there are only 2 stages:

– Stage 1: Water at 33oC is converted to water at 100oC. Since no phase change is occurring here, this is a specific heat
capacity change:
𝑬 = 𝒎𝒄∆𝜽

– Stage 2: Water at 100oC is converted to steam at 100oC. At this point, a phase change is occurring and therefore, we use a
latent heat change:
𝑬 = 𝒎𝒍𝒗
STEP 2- Substitute values to calculate the heat energy for each stage.
Stage 1: 𝐸 = 10 × 4200 × 100 − 33 = 10 × 4200 × 67 = 𝟐 𝟖𝟏𝟒 𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝑱
Stage 2: E = 10 × 2 300 000 = 𝟐𝟑 𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝑱

STEP 3- Sum the energy values for each stage and convert to the desired unit:
Total heat energy required = 2 814 000 + 23 000 000 = 25 814 000 J = 25.8 MJ
WORKED EXAMPLE
• A Block Diagram can also be used to indicate the stages in the
conversion of the water to steam. We can also clearly see 2 stages for
this example.

Stage 1 Stage 2
𝑬 = 𝒎𝒄∆𝜽 𝑬 = 𝒎𝒍𝒗
 BOILING VS EVAPORATION
BOILING
Takes place at a fixed temperature
Takes place throughout the liquid
Takes place at a constant temperature
Thermal energy supplied by an energy source
Boiling is not increased by increasing surface area of
liquid
Boiling temperature increases with increases in external
pressure and vice versa
EVAPORATION
Takes place at any temperature
Takes place at the surface of the liquid
Causes a cooling effect as higher energy molecules
vaporize
Thermal energy supplied by the surroundings
Increasing surface area increases rate of evaporation
Evaporation rate decreases if external (atmospheric)
pressure increases.
APPLICATIONS OF THE COOLING EFFECT
OF EVAPORATION
AIR CONDITIONERS & REFRIGERATORS
• These two appliances work on the same premise using a
condenser coil and an evaporator coil.

• Both make use of a refrigerant substance.

• For the refrigerant as a gas, a compressor is needed to

decrease volume which causes a pressure and temperature
increase.

• The high pressure and high temperature gas flows through a

condenser coil (red) (normally found at the back of units).
This results in the gas cooling by losing heat to the
environment and forming a liquid.

• The high pressure liquid refrigerant flows to an expansion

valve after which it becomes a cold vapour at low pressure.
The cold vapour passes through an evaporator coil (blue)
which draws heat from the inside of the refrigerator or room
cooling down the surroundings.

• The cycle then continues.

 EARTHENWARE JARS/POTS
• This is a cooling device that does not need
electricity.
• It is still used in many African countries.
• It contains two porous pots one inside the
other separated by a layer of wet sand.
• The food to keep cool is placed into the
inner pot and covered.
• The evaporation of the liquid in the wet
sand causes heat to be transferred out of
the inner pot resulting in a cooling effect.
 PERSPIRATION
• In hotter temperatures, the
body perspires.
• Sweat evaporates from the skin
and hence the skin cools.